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Fun at the Hangout Cafe… after hours when there’s less peeps hanging there

OK, so this list is subject to change – when I hear of a new entry worthy of the list or of one of these entries deserving a different position I’ll update it. But as of right now, here we go:

10: Café Dias

Only come here for coffee and cake. These two items on the menu are pretty damned fine. The coffee at Café Dias is fair trade, often from Africa, and you’ll salivate over choosing your cake from the many-tiered display cabinet. It’s in the bookshop, Panta Rhei, and the other reason it goes in at number 10 is as a great people-watching spot.

A great hidden-away little spot by St Martin’s Cathedral: at front it doubles as the Old Town’s coolest antique shops, at back the café, decorated with quirky knickknacks, is a place where you can sit and sip and never be rushed.

Another hidden-away place in an interesting area just east of downtown near the Blue Church. There’s a small outside garden, and the inside is lovably, cosily retro: you could imagine Communist leaders making breakfast business deals here. The coffee is great (fair trade, with produce from coffee growers around the world available, and in my opinion a candidate for the city’s best) and the cake selection is very good. It’s slipped down the list a tad of late because sometimes if you go in it can be quiet, and this can detract from the atmosphere.

This little place at Floriánske Námestie goes in at 6 for the quality of its coffee. It is up there with the city’s best, and for the quality/ price ratio (an espresso costs just €1) for a caffeine fix it could be top. It falls down for having a poor cake selection and for there being a lot of competition for seating: you often feel rushed. It’s so popular though that the outside seats are taken even in winter!

And indeed, perhaps you will feel as though uttering the classic incantation to incite magical happenings (the name is the Slovak way of saying Abracadabra by the way) really can occasionally work, when you clap eyes on this cute, tucked-away place on Grösslingová, which styles itself as a literary teahouse, but also serves incredible coffee amongst heavily book-stacked shelves. Places come, and places close, but this little joint has become a permanent fixture in the Bratislava hot drinks scene and comes the closest to replacing the lamentably departed Prešporák – my all-time favourite Bratislava cafe (but watch this space for an interesting update on that score).

Most people know about Bistro St German now, tourists included. But that’s because it’s a great place: with an atmosphere reminiscent of the Parisian bistros of old, formidable cakes, including a gluten-free option, decent (although betterable) coffee. The soups and lunches (a delicious burger, a succulent quiche) are worth a stop too.

Location: Rajská 7 (It’s now moved as of May 2014 to this new location from its former one off Obchodná – it’s new location is not QUITE as atmospheric which means its position on this list has now changed.)

A bit of an institution now but a pretty good one, has a menu in old-fashioned Slovak (faithful to founder of the Slovak language, Ľudovít Štúr, after whom it takes its name) and great baguettes and lunches. The cakes are also very good, and it’s open until 10pm.

The owner claims he does the city’s best espresso and he could well be right; the word on the street often backs him up at least. It’s a nice interior: bare-brick walls, seating at the bar or at window tables and a nice big blackboard touting the specials. It only doesn’t get a higher entry because the quality in the centre is getting pretty high.

Kava.Bar was treated with much excitement by englishmaninslovakia.co.uk when we spotted it on a walk up to the castle a couple of winters back. It’s a small place, but huge blackboards and cute window seats and a liberal decoration with various curios make this very eye-catching as cute cosy cafes go. The coffee is great, the cake selection not bad, but I would also have liked to see a little more in the way of food. But the ambience is perfect.